Category: Psychology

I was in a room filled with stars, which led to an endless hallway lined with sparkly, shimmery doors. At first I thought I was in the hall of akashic records, but then my invisible guide said to me, telepathically, “no, child, it is not history you will find behind those doors, but possibility.”

I then understood that each door opened into a different reality. I became instantly filled with a kind of overwhelming excitement that I hadn’t felt since my childhood. The doorways were infinite. The possibilities were infinite.

My imagination ran wild envisioning all the magical and mysterious worlds I could discover. Would there be benevolent creatures beyond anything dreamt up in the movies? Would there be fantastical alien landscapes with pink skies and purple clouds you could float around on? Which door would lead me to utopia?

I couldn’t contain myself any longer, and threw open the first door on my right. I was sucked, (quite literally, as if being vacuumed up) into its reality, and a moment later I ‘woke up’ in my childhood bed. Before I even opened my eyes, I knew who and where I was, and instantly felt disappointed with the familiarity of my surroundings.

I was 10, living in a shitty outer-suburbs duplex with my mother, and she was very angry with me for reasons I couldn’t tell. Everything seemed to be normal, except for two things: one, my stepfather was nowhere to be seen, and two, we had moved out of that particular house when i was 8. It then hit me; in this reality, my mum never met my stepdad, we never moved, and my brother was never born. That ain’t cool, I thought, and closed my eyes and willed myself back to the room of stars.﻿

I experiemented with a few doors in close proximity, and quickly found, to my dismay, that they all led to slightly modified versions of my predominant reality. In one version, my grandparents had died early in my life, leaving my mother and I a sizeable inheritance. So we had money and an increased quality of life, but the abscence of my grandparents left a large void in our family unit. In another version, I stayed in my hometown, married my high school boyfriend and had three kids by the time I was 21.

After going through several doors and versions of my life, I became frustrated by the lack of diversity in my human experience. “How many doors do I have to open until I find a completely different reality, seperate to myself?” I shouted in desperation to my unembodied guide. “I don’t want just another version of my own reality, I want to experience a new reality!” I wanted a new family and body and ancestry and personality and desires. I wanted to experience life as someone else. “But, child,” said my guide, “that is the whole point of being alive, of being a person, of having an individual and unique human experience.”

“What do you mean? What is the point?”

“When our eternal being decides to separate from source to become embodied and live out a human life, we do so because it gives us the opportunity to manifest and materialize our infinite possibility.” I still wasn’t getting it. “So why can’t I explore some of that infinite possibility?”

“Because for this life cycle, you’ve chosen this body and this path. You chose this one specifically for a reason. You need to fully explore all the potential of this particular life… before moving on to another.”

I got it. It finally made sense. I still wasn’t thrilled about it, but I understood why I was confined to this body and it’s variant realities. I needed to remember my original life intent and make the steps to restore my path before I could even think about moving on. Prior to this moment, I’d been stuck in inaction; my guide showing me this room was her way of giving me a gentle nudge, a friendly reminder of all the potential I was squandering and all the possibilities of this human life.﻿

The lights are out and the curtains have finally been drawn on the shit show that was 2016. The audience waits with breathless anticipation as the next act is ushered in- a new year filled with new hope, new fears and new problems to be played out on the worlds’ stage. Everyone’s hoping 2017 will provide a better, more positive performance, but personally, I didn’t find the past 12 months to be as evil and arduous as the public en masse seemed to.

There was a kind of collective condemnation of the offending year, as if 2016 was a storybook villain wreaking havoc on the innocent citizens of the world, rather than the intangible measurement of time that it actually was.

For me, it was a period of transformation and awakening. I reached the milestone age of thirty, and surprisingly didn’t haven’t a breakdown about it. I began experimenting with altered states of consciousness and entheogens, which unexpectedly propelled me onto a path of spirituality, and discovered a lot of new things about myself, the world, and this reality which I inhabit. I found several of my long-held beliefs challenged and subsequently smashed to smithereens.

Now, its been awhile since I’ve added any updates to my DMT Diaries, and I must explain that this is not due to a shortage of things to say; rather, my silence has been the result of a recent ‘spiritual fatigue’, for lack of a better term, that has washed over me.

I spent most of the last year on a quest for deeper knowledge, embarking on fervent esoteric research and experimentation. I’ve attempted to document my experiences and findings and connect with the psychedelic community. Some would say my fascination bordered on obsession. The result of all this has been, at best, a mystical, eye-opening journey into the realms of the unknown, and at worse, a frustrating exercise in mind-fuckery. Frankly, the whole thing has been quite exhausting.

So now, I’m a just a bit over everything. I’m bored with reading about interdimensional travel and Planck time and sick of trying to raise my vibrational frequency. I’m tired of monitoring my thoughts and trying to manifest positivity. I know I have so much left to learn, I’m just lacking the passion to do so.

But it’s not like immersing myself in regular old 3D reality is overly appealing, either. I know too much now; I will never experience the bliss of ignorance again. I can’t just plonk myself down in front of a sitcom for hours and chuckle along with the laugh track anymore. I can’t just scroll through my Facebook feed and read the endless mind-numbing expositions of my friends and acquaintances or be bothered weeding out the click-bait from the genuine articles. Everything just seems to tedious and irritating to me, and I don’t know what to do about it.

So I’m stuck in this uncomfortable state of restless dissatisfaction; itching for change, but unable to see any viable opportunities for it. I want things to be different, better, more exciting, but I don’t know how to make that happen.
I think I need a mentor.

Someone to guide me through this period of transition, to re-motivate and inspire me, to help illuminate my path.
I must remind myself that I’ve come pretty far on my own, and even give myself props for that. I not only ventured out of my comfort zone this year, I came tearing out of it, naked and screaming, like a bat out of hell. The past 12months have seen me shed a huge amount of negative constructs in my life: for example, I no longer rely on pharmaceutical drugs to regulate my moods and sleep, which is huge coming from a girl who has been heavily medicated since 16.

I’ve also shed all the external artifice that for years acted as armour against my insecurities, and no longer get the costly and painful hair and eyelash extensions I’ve worn since I was 19. I barely eat fast food anymore, and I drink liters of water a day, something which might seems simple and insignificant to those who naturally embark on these basic healthy habits, but no so to myself, a soft-drink and takeaway addict. I’ve also started weekly yoga classes and regularly practice breathing and mindfulness meditation.

However, I still smoke what is probably considered ‘too much’ weed, have the odd cigarette if I’m feeling particularly nervy, and divulge in heavier drugs occasionally. So I’m far from being a holistic temple of purity, but I still like to think I’ve come along way.
I have a good life, all in all. I’m in the healthiest place I’ve ever been mentally, my relationship and home life is filled with love and stability, and I have a job that pays a decent wage and allows me to spend my days around music and movies, two of my favorite things. So what’s the problem? Why do I feel so empty? Why, on most mornings, am I filled with dismay upon waking?

Maybe it’s because I’ve had a glimpse of something more, something bigger, something divine, and it’s difficult to readjust to the mundanities of everyday life. Maybe I’m experiencing a ‘dark night of the soul’, a period of tumultuous inner chaos that many report suffering while on a quest for enlightenment. If this is the case, it means I’m embroiled in a kind of tug-of-war between my spiritual self and my ego, both fighting for dominance over my consciousness.

If anyone has experienced a similar feeling, or had overcome a ‘dark night’ of their own, please reach out to me. Any and all advice, tips, stories etc is welcome! You can comment here links to your own accounts, or email me at little.psychonaut@gmail.com. Thanks in advance, and safe travels to all of you in 2017. ✌🏻

Some of my more eagle-eyed followers may have noticed that I recently published, then removed, a series of posts related to my DMT experiences and transformation into a psychedelic moonchild.

I started totallyborderline as a way of dealing with my mental health diagnoses and reaching out to others with similar issues. It’s been an incredibly cathartic, albeit narcissistic journey, and one that will continue throughout my life. As such I will continue to document it on this blog.

I realized after 3 DMT-related posts that I had more to say on the subject- so much more. My mind has been opened to a whole new way of thinking and a lot of weird existential shit is flowing through the floodgates. In fact, I had enough material and thoughts on the stuff to fill its own blog.

My current fascination with spiritual pursuits is certainly intertwined with my mental state, however it is such an intense subject that I decided it best to seperate the two. If anyone cares to follow that journey, please head over to Little Psychonaut and check out my DMT Diaries.

For everyone else, I’ll try and refrain from clogging this feed with trippy ramblings of transdimensionsal time-lords and star children- no promises. ✌🏻️

Around a year ago my life started changing. Improving, some would say.

I’ve been barreling clumsily down a path towards awakening, and during this entire period I’ve had an insatiable hunger for knowledge, which I’ve been devouring through essays, scientific reviews, books, pamphlets, literally anything related to existential psychology and expanding consciousness.

From all of this manic research, combined with my own experiences and rumimations on the subjects related to the higher self and the inevitable questions everybody has about the ‘point’ or meaning of life, I believe I’ve started to piece together pieces of the puzzle.

Ive been shown glimpses of the code, the sacred geometry, the patterns literally weaving together the fabric of existence, through my experience with DMT. My focus for the past few months has been trying to develop some form of understanding and integration of the complex messages I received.

Im still in the infant stages of my esoteric education, so a lot of it is still far above my current ability to comprehend, and it’s challenging to retain the knowledge of the things I do understand, so I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on some of the key thoughts, teachings and theories that have resonated with me since commencing this journey of mystical weirdness.

• Good and evil exists on this earthly plane in equal measure, however it is better defined as light and dark. I’ve seen the yin and yang symbol a thousand times throughout my life but now when I come across it, I understand it’s deep meaning. I’ve struggled my entire existence with my own darkness, allowed myself to become consumed by it at times, at others fighting hard to suppress and smother it.

I’m realizing now that neither is the correct way to go about it. In order to live a fully integrated life and move towards fulfillment, i must find a balance with my emotions and find a way for both sides of my nature to exist in harmony. Darkness shouldn’t be willfully ignored or attempted to be squashed deeper down into a hidden recess. But in equal measure, it should not be exhalted or glorified, but rather, in order to attain emotional balance, one must acknowledge their darkness, and then find a way to accept it.

Acceptance means more than just tolerance. To truly accept your darkness, one must have the same attitude as the sun towards the moon. Existing side by side, understanding that each is as vital as the other, the sun content with it dominion over the daylight hours and happy for the moon to own the night. It is the way it is, both serving an equal yet opposite purpose, just as it within ourselves.

•There is so, so much more to this life than we can perceive in our third dimensional form. This whole universe is an energetic life force, teeming with endless possibilities, layered with infinite dimensions and realities.

DMT has shown me glimpses of the ‘energetic imprint’ of the fourth dimension. Every single solid thing, every life and piece of matter in this world, has a trail or ‘aura’ around it, and all these auras bleed into and feed off each other. Things that I once perceived to be bland, innanimate objects, such an an aircon unit, were suddenly no longer in solid state but wavy and gaseous, with an energetic aura and ‘personality’ to match.

Our feeble 3D senses would be overloaded if we were able to perceive all of this information all the time- imagine constantly ‘hearing’ colours and ‘seeing’ sounds whilst still trying to function within our societal constructs. One would surely go insane.

However, there are abundant ‘points of access’ for us to experience these heightened states of awareness, and I feel it vitally important for every individual to tap into it at some stage of their life. The more we open our minds, the more we allow in.

• Our thoughts manifest our reality. This is a mind-meltingly difficult concept to grasp, and it’s the one I’ve been most preoccupied with lately. The way I understand it is this: human beings are a way for our higher self, which is an unembodied life force, to experience third dimensional consciousness. It is an opportunity to explore the complexities of emotion, through physical experience, and a progressive linear timeframe in which conflict, growth and resolution can play out.

Information is received to the human brain via the lens of the five senses, and based on our previous experiences with whichever sense we receive, we apply emotion to that information. We then respond physically to the stimulus based on this emotion. Our response and actions have an immediate ripple effect on our surroundings, and thus our reality is formed.

By this logic, the only way to drastically change our current reality is to first examine our thoughts, and become aware of the subconscious emotional factors influencing our responses. Once we identify thought patterns that are no longer serving us or aiding our advancement, we can work on altering these thoughts and manifesting a more positive reality.

Word to the wise, once you go down this line of thinking, you inevitably become embroiled in the world of quantum physics. It’s a mysterious and confusing world, and I believe it’s the scientific link between our spiritual and physical selves.

Much like the yin and yang, I’ve always been vaguely aware of Quantum’s famous double slit experiment but didn’t really get it. I was reintroduced to the concept recently, and thanks to my current awareness of these things, I actually could grasp it, and my brain is still exploding over the implications. Schroedingers cat, observer-based reality… these are no longer abstract ideas for me but truth. If you’re not familiar with any of this, I’m afraid you’ll have to do the research yourself as I’m way under qualified (read: not intelligent enough) to explain it.

• Finally, I read last an article last week that really interested me. It was theorizing on how DMT affects the pineal gland, and that the bombardment of geometric patterns is actually a kind of chakra-activation. It’s a ‘visual language’, deeply rooted in our subconscious, and once the imagery has been recieved, it works like the secret signal activated in a sleeper cell; your third eye has been opened, you are offered a glimpse into the realm of the divine, and things will never be the same.

This is certainly true for me. The first time I experienced the spectacular mandala and chrysanthemum visual display, I felt a deep sense of familiarity with them, almost a bond. Like reencountering a beloved childhood tv show that had been long forgotten.

I could write endless nonsensical volumes on all the concepts and ideas I’ve been obsessing over, but brevity is something I’m trying to work on. At this point in my awakening I have far more questions than answers, and that’s ok. The more I question the nature of reality, the more illusions shatter on their own.

I know that I’m exactly where I need to be at this exact point in time; so far down the rabbit hole I can no longer see the way out, but unafraid of what lies on the other side.

For more on my experiences in the realm of the psychedelic, please check out my other blog which is devoted entirely to the subject. The DMT Diaries

There’s this guy I work with, he’s a few years older than me and honestly he’s the most frustrating head-fuck of a person I’ve ever met. I won’t use his name as he’s totally the type of prick who would find out and sue me, so I’ll simply refer to him as ‘the colleague’. I’ll try not to go on about him too much as it makes me angry and I don’t have time, I could literally write volumes on him, in fact perhaps I will, and then take the hefty tomes to a therapist to help me deal with the years worth of shit he’s put me through. I mean, this is an asshole who orders for lunch hot chips with salt and vinegar- minus the salt. What a monster, right? My eye is twitching just thinking about it. Anyway.

So the colleague will amble into work every day, lanky and immediately irritating on sight, and proceed to log in and put his stuff away, without greeting anyone. Someone will inevitably call out, “Hey, colleague!” To which he’ll respond with an unenthusiastic “hey” in turn. Someone will follow up with, “how are you?” To which the colleague will respond, every single fucking day, five working days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, for the past five fucking years:

“I’m ok.”

This response is never elaborated on, nor is the question ever returned. And the answer is always the same. I’m ok.

Like everything he does, including in no small part the way he breathes, I’ve become increasingly furious at this inevitable daily exchange. So recently, I confronted him about it. “Why just ‘ok’, colleague?” I demanded angrily. “Why never ‘great’ or ‘awesome’ or ‘tired’ or ‘shit’? Why are you always just fucking ok?” The colleague, who forever remains infuriatingly unfazed by my spontaneous bursts of anger towards him, just shrugged. “I’m ok. I’m always ok.” I was seething by this point, all white knuckles and pursed lips. “But why, Colleague? Why? Why aren’t you ever more or less than ok?” Once again he shrugged his fucking stupid shrug with his shitty shoulders and said, “I guess its coz all my good days are behind me. I had a good year when I was twenty-three. But I’m, like 32 now. Now I’ll only ever be ok.” I found this as sad as I did annoying, and that’s one of the worst things about the Colleague, right when you’re ready to rip his stupid goofy head off and use it as a bowling ball to repeatedly knock down his lanky headless body, he goes and says something so pathetically sweet that your anger just kinds of simmers down and melts into a begrudging pity. Usually followed by a moment of shame for thinking of him so unkindly, reminding yourself that he’s 99% likely on the lower-functioning end of the autism spectrum but his stupid religious parents never got him diagnosed or treated, so it’s not really his fault that he’s stumbling about blindy in mainstream society, deliberately unaware of how burdensome he is to those forced to be around him. And then I usually feel angry at him for making me feel sorry for him and wasting another 10minutes of my life thinking about him and his stupid fucking family.

Again, I digress. The whole point of this, before I got lost in my intense feelings towards the Colleague (and now I’m furious at him again for hijacking my thought process), was to question whether at some point, is it acceptable to abandon striving for greatness and just embrace mediocrity? Is it ok to be just… Ok?

I’ve accidentally spent the last decade working a reasonably enjoyable, but ultimately completely pointless job, selling CDs and DVDs. I love music and movies but hate sales and the corporate environment and most of the general public, and I’ve always felt guilty for not pursuing a more lucrative career path.

This sense of guilt compelled to me strive for more, kind of- I climbed the corporate ladder, used my smart mouth to kiss the proper assess and quickly wound up managing a multi-million dollar a year business with a staff of 30, by the age of 25. While doing this I also decided to study online and I obtained a diploma of counseling and another in training and management. And pretty soon I was so stressed and burned out that I wanted to fucking neck myself. I would literally cry myself to sleep because I had too many things to do and I was too overwhelmed to do any of them. One time I was so rundown and dehydrated I got a kidney infection. I woke up in the middle of the night paralyzed with agony, so I rang the house-call Doctor who arrived at 4am and gave me a shot of morphine in the ass for the pain. I had to open up the store at 7am and I couldn’t get hold of any of the other managers to cover for me, so I literally had to open the shop high on morphine and battling a life-threatening infection- that’s fucking dedication, my friend.

Needless to say, I eventually figured out that management life was not for me, or for anyone really with a soul, so I stepped back down to a lower-ranking position and have never once regretted it. I haven’t really aimed for anything work-related since, and have stopped putting so much importance in my job. It’s just a fucking job, a dumb one at that, just a way to make the money that allows my existence to continue. In this case, I felt it’s ok to be just ok.

We can’t all be special. We can’t all lead a magnificent life or leave an important legacy. Barely any of us will have any affect on humanity whatsoever or have our names in the history books. We are, as individuals, less significant than a grain of sand in the ocean, but collectively,we make something vital and expansive, like all the single grains of sand combined to form a body of land, or how the drops of water flow together to create a sea.

Ultimately I think it’s ok to be just ok, but only when it comes to the mediocrities of life, and that in itself is the tricky part; determining what is truly meaningful versus mediocre. I feel like so many of us put things on the wrong end of the scale because we are influenced by the values of others. Of course your boss is going to tell you that finishing some report takes precedence over getting home to your family; because to him, it is. It’s ok to not be cutthroat in the workplace; your work is not the sum of of your life; unless, of course, you have devoted yourself to caring, healing, or another all-consuming, noble labor. It’s ok to be just ok with yourself at times- self-love is a lifelong journey, and the pressure to be happy all the time is bullshit, like the old man in the street who tells you to “smile love, it’s free!” when you were just minding your own business, trying desperately to get to the coffee shop before work even though you’re already running late, you weren’t even unhappy, and what kind of fucking maniac walks around with a smile as their default expression anyway? Stupid old prick.

On the other hand, I feel there are many things you should never be ok with being just ok.

Whatever you are passionate about, whatever your thing is, be it writing, singing, making people laugh, fucking beat-boxing, be it creative or analytical or just plain weird, whatever pops those pleasure bubbles, you should try to be the fucking boss at. Once you’ve taken over, don’t stop- aim to redifine the game. Try to be the ultimate greatest in the universe at that thing you love; not for ego or physical reward, but so that you can spend your days on something fulfilling, so that you can put something out into the world that could change lives, so that you can enhance the existence of your passion by your unique contribution.

If you create something out of passion, unmotivated by the possibly of notoriety or prestige but compelled to create for the sake of creation alone, there is no success or failure, and you couldn’t be ‘just ok’ if you tried.

One should also never settle for mediocrity when it comes to love, sex, and important relationships. Love should knock you off your feet and make you more terrified and vulnerable than you’ve ever felt. Sex should deprive you, at least momentarily, of your breath and speech, leaving you both exhilarated and exhausted. That kind of love and sex exists, and can be attained by just about everyone, so settling for anything less is just depriving yourself of one of life’s most beautiful gifts. I’ve certainly been guilty of it; I wasted years on a shitty relationship because leaving seemed like too much effort. I won’t ever get those years back but I also won’t waste any more. Don’t misunderstand me; you can’t expect an otherworldly, transcendental experience every time for everyone, but it is certainly the bar for which you should aim.

Ultimately, I believe that the Colleague is, as usual, mistaken when he says he won’t have any more good days. We don’t get a quota, we don’t run out, we have however damn many we create for ourselves.

If we want a more fulfilling life, we need to be ok with some things being just ok. Your lunch order won’t always be on time or even correct. Sometimes someone will spill shit on your new expensive blouse. Do you really have to get worked up about it? Seems to me, if you’re the type of person to wear ‘blouses’, you’ve already go enough to worry about.

Essentially, spend less energy on life’s minor inconveniences and trivial pursuits (including the boardgame of the same name, that game fucking sucks) and focus it on things more worthy of your precious hours.

For a long period, I didn’t write at all, although writing’s always been my one release, purely because it doesn’t bring in money and I couldn’t afford to waste a moment on financially fruitless endeveours. I imagine that more than half the civilized population are in the same boat- how many people can actually spend time doing things they enjoy anymore? How many are actually able to rise above the distractions and obsessions of modern living?

A beautiful writer once said; ‘how we spend our days, is, of course, how we spend our lives’. I’ve had my share of bad days, probably more than my share actually, probably excarbated by my own inaction. I spent a lot of time desperately wishing to just be ok. When you’re in despair, getting back to ‘ok’ feels like all you could ever hope for, so when you get there, you stop trying for more. All your hopes and dreams end at ‘ok’, because you don’t know any different.

It’s like someone wanting to have sex but not orgasm. Imagine going around your whole life fucking people with no concept of climaxing? Just being like ‘oh yeah this feels great I’m so glad I got laid’ and then stopping after like three thrusts and tucking your junk away and going about the rest of your afternoon because that’s all you know. Sure, boning is great, but we all know orgasms are next level great(and kind of the whole point).If we hadn’t figured this out, we would have been a short-lived and frustrated species indeed. We shouldn’t want to spend our life having climax-free sex or ok-days.

So for now, I’m trying to first figure out what my standard of mediocrity is, and then each day aiming to do (even just slightly) better than that. Devote my time to people and pursuits that bring me the most fulfillment; be ok with putting myself first and being selfish with my time. Although in doing so, if I do happen to affect someone else positively and they also end up having an above-average day, well, that’s kind of great.

Living with a mental illness and various panic disorders is, to me, kind of like walking around with a heavy and noisy speaker on your shoulder. Blaring your personal, and often embarrassing, playlists for the world to hear, on shuffle, with you desperately trying but unable to find the mute button. You receive a bunch of unwanted attention from eye-rolling strangers, the song and tempo is often wildly inappropriate for the situation, and people don’t understand why you can’t just silence the damn thing. Continue reading “Anxiety, The Worst of Me”→